BENEATH THE BROKEN OAK
By Lori Altebaumer
Mystery / Romance
Publisher: One Thousand Hills Publishing
Pages: 400
Publication Date: February 22, 2025
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*** SYNOPSIS ***
Trees don’t heal. They seal.
But Forester Jodee Trevaine isn’t a tree. The wounds of abandonment she’s spent years denying will be ripped open the night she witnesses a child’s abduction.
The hardscrabble West Texas town of El Hueso, where keeping secrets is what keeps you alive, is the last place one would expect to find healing.
Until her job brings her there for a dying tree.
With new friends and the unexpected reacquaintance with the man she loved and left, Jodee has everything to gain—and just as much to lose—as she races against time to rescue the boy.
Could it be that her roots go deeper than she realized into the soil of EL Hueso?
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*** REVIEW ***
A story with great heart.
This is anything but a simple story. So much happens, connecting characters in different ways that it’s like a tapestry of the many lives and events that intertwine and propel the plot.
The main thrust of the story focuses on Jodee as she attempts to sort out her life – at the same time that she’s trying to rescue a young boy who’s abducted from a truck stop. She’s also on a mission to save the ancient oak tree in the center of this small town, which is the job she was sent there to do.
The tree, and it’s roots, holds the various threads of the tapestry together as everything goes back to the tree. From what happened a century earlier to what occurs in present time, the tree is connected, sheltering the many secrets that are slowly revealed throughout the narrative. The revelations come at just the right time, and were often a delightful surprise, as in “I didn’t see that coming.”
The novel alternates chapters between past and present, and it’s easy for a reader to follow the changes and get more and more absorbed in the complicated history of the people and the place. The more I read, the more I saw how both timelines are still so solidly connected to that old tree, and role it plays in the horrible secret that drives the dark side of the town.
It’s true that the sins of the past never truly go away.
Jodee and Blue are wonderful characters, fully developed and likeable. There were times I questioned her impulse to jump into the fire, literally and figuratively, but I could understand the driving force behind her actions.
Maybe because she knows she can’t save the tree, she’s desperate to save the boy who disappeared? That’s just a sliver of a motivation I sensed as her deep desire to do good, even though she didn’t always feel good about herself – is so evident. She struggles to believe in herself – believe she is worthy of love – which complicates so much in her life, especially her relationship with Blue, which is complicated enough merely by their past history.
The resolution of the romantic dilemma doesn’t come easily. Nor does the resolution of the mystery. But when they come, it is with a great deal of what I call the heart of this story – faith in God, faith in the strength of relationships, and an abiding faith that good will always conquer evil.
I really enjoyed meeting the mysterious cowboy who shows up at crucial moments to pull Jodee out of whatever mess she’s gotten herself into. The cowboy, in full old-fashioned Western wear from Stetson to long, tan coat, is also instrumental in helping other characters, jumping the centuries, adding that perfect element of fantasy. If he’s an angel, he’s my kind of angel.
I highly recommend this book to readers who like a story with a complicated mystery, engaging characters, plenty of surprises, great descriptions, and a satisfying resolution.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning novelist and Amazon Top New Release author Lori Altebaumer is a lifelong Texan whose family roots run deep in the Lone Star state. Her writing bends the rules for modern Christian fiction, telling bold stories of good and evil in a broken world.
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